5 Problems with Harry Potter that need answered

The Harry Potter book and film series are one of the most successful franchises ever, with seven books turned into eight films, it’s a series forever imprinted upon the minds of millions around the globe.

But you can’t make such a long series, over so many years without letting a few stupid moments or plot points slip through, and that’s what we’re here for today, this is all the things in the Harry Potter films which just annoy the hell out of me.

Hiding the Philosophers’ stone.

One of the main plot points of the first film Harry Potter and the Philosophers’ stone (not Sorcerers’ Stone America, deal with it) is the fact that Dumbledore is allowing his old friend to hide the source of immortality within Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry, despite knowing that it’s a target for the dark lord Voldemort (way to endanger the lives of children to protect something you could have hidden literally else btw Dumbledore).

But the stone isn’t just hidden, no silly that would be STUPID! It’s protected by a series of defences, each more ridiculous than the last, there’s a big three headed dog, a big angry plant, a load of keys that fly and a giant anthropomorphic chess set, all leading to a mirror.

Fort Knox it is not however, as not only the dark lords’ stooge and current home, professor Quirrell but a team of bloody 11 year olds are able to make their way through.

Now here’s the thing, why make all of this stuff at all, it’s suggested that each barrier was created by a different member of the Hogwarts staff, so all Dumbledore’s doing is to let more people in on something which is supposed to be a secret.

Not to mention the fact that the school already has a perfect place to hide something, the room of requirement, why didn’t Dumbledore hide the stone in there? Then no one but him would be able to get it, just like what Harry does with the potions book in Half Blood Prince.

Harry pulls an Indiana Jones

You know that one really annoying guy who always seems to be there when you want to watch Raiders of the lost ark? The one who always has to point out that Jones is essentially irrelevant to the overall outcome of the film?

No?

Ok allow me, the point goes that if Jones had done nothing at all the story would have still gone wrong for the Nazis, either they would never have found the ark because they were digging in the wrong place until Jones came along, or they would have found it, opened it as they had planned in Berlin and melted Hitler’s face off.

(Yay! Melting dictators are always fun!)

The only reason I bring this up is that Potter ends up doing the exact same thing!

The last barrier protecting the stone is the mirror of Erised, which Dumbledore (professor of child endangerment) explains means that only someone who wanted to find the stone and not use it could actually find it.

Ok, so Quirrell shows up touting an evil snake man on the back of his head, very much wanting the stone, finds he can’t get it.

Story over!

Quirrell can’t get the stone, Voldemort can’t come back and presumably the two of them collapse sobbing on the floor reflecting upon the sheer stupidity of the situation they find themselves in.

Until Harry comes along to save the day/potentially wreck the entire world.

See Harry can and does get hold of the stone, meaning that all Quirrell has to do is kill a young boy and darkness wins (yay darkness!).

Harry potentially ruins everything and is only saved by the mothers love deus ex machina coupled with the fact that Quirrell seemingly forgets that he can kill people with 2 words and proceeds to try to choke the lad to death,

what a boner.

Lockhart is literally too useless to be alive

Speaking of stupid Hogwarts staff, and believe me I was, we get to the second film and Gilderoy Lockhart, professional bulls*** artist and quite possibly the most useless wizard ever! It’s not just that he is incapable of performing the same level of magic as the other teachers, he’s less adept than children who have one year of basic magical training under their belts.

Ok this is not just a question of how Lockhart managed to become a teacher (seriously is there no formal examination or licensing?)

This is a question of how this man is even able to function in regular life. I mean this is a world where everything revolves around magic, people use it for the smallest of things, and here’s this guy stumbling about unable to do anything right other than smile like an idiot whilst leaving a trail of destruction in his wake.

I mean could you imagine someone this stupid in real life, this purely inept at doing anything which btw is considered basic for anyone his age in this world? How was he not put in some sort of special class at school? How did he even graduate from school, I mean Hagrid may have brought giant murder spiders into the dorms but at least he made a passable attempt at turning someone into a pig, where as Lockhart would basically in that situation be the guy touching the camp fire to make sure it’s hot, doop a doop a doo.

Literally everything to do with the Chamber of secrets

Now on this one I’m talking about the actual chamber, not the film as a whole, but we’re told that one of the four founders of the school Salazar Slytherin (not an evil name at all) built a secret chamber in the school, made sure that only people who could speak snake (because f**k you I’m Salazar Slytherin!) could open it, and topped it off by putting a nice, murder hungry giant snake inside. And we’re meant to believe that no body noticed? Three of the greatest wizards of all time are working on this (I presume building site) with him and they never noticed when he was sneaking off to build his snake porn wizard Nazi lair in one of the loos? Was there never a moment when they were all like “hey where’s Sal?” and Gryffindor’s like “oh he’s over there speaking snake to the plumbing, just leave him alone he’ll be fine”.

Speaking of snakes, lets get to the Basilisk, Slytherins’ weapon against all those filthy mudblood children, oh how we hate them for their muddy blood. The film says that this thing, which is huge by the way, has been getting around the castle using the plumbing in order to attack students.

Ok, I’m calling bulls**t on that.

Think about it, how wide is the average plumbing pipe, a few inches across? This things massive, no way it could have gotten through there, and even if it could, are there pipes throughout every wall in the castle, how’s it getting out of them? Are there just open pipes hanging out of walls and floors Mario Brothers style?

Finally, we have the one person which the basilisk is actually accredited with killing, Moaning, don’t bother learning her second name seemingly no one cared Myrtle.

So, she was killed during the heir of Slytherins’ attacks, and all the teachers know this, she’s able to describe the attack to Harry and Ron and all of what she says points to someone other than Hagrid and his loveable ball of spidery death.

So what, did no one ever talk to the ghost of the girl mysteriously killed on school grounds, you know the one who still hangs out in the exact bathroom she died in. Myrtles’ shown going through the floor on several occasions, how does she never come across the tunnel to the chamber, its right there!

House elves

This has bugged me for more than a decade, where exactly do house elves come from? Literally the only piece of information which we get in the books is that they essentially come with big houses and that they stay with a family for life.

But where do they come from originally, how did it get to be an established practice that they exist in essentially a state of slavery to the wizards, and why is it that no one but Hermione has a problem with this?

Because let’s face it here, the house elves are slaves, they’re bound to servitude for life, don’t receive pay, and it’s legal for their master to do pretty much anything they want to them. Sure they’re shown to be very loyal to their masters and not really want to be free, but isn’t that just the result of generations of abuse and wizard propaganda?

It’s mentioned that there are male and female elves, do they breed? Do the wizard masters force them to breed like show dogs or is there some sort of horrible wizard run battery farm churning the little buggers out like hens?

I’d personally love to read an extended novel describing the horrible colonial past of the wizarding world, how they ran some weird trans-continental slave trade for years until beating the poor elves into accepting their Uncle Tom style we like being slaves really lives.